The London Olympics has been a missed opportunity to improve public health, according to the Lords science and technology committe.

The committee today published a report stating that more must be done to make use of exercise based treatments.

The report states that there is a lack of awareness and appropriate training for health professionals of the benefits of exercise based treatments. A recent survey of 48 London GP practices found that none were aware of the latest physical activity guidelines.

The London Olympics present a unique opportunity to improve public health and improve understanding of the benefits of physical activity both by the public and health care professionals. Our concern is that this opportunity could be lost. We find it extremely disappointing that so few London GPs are even aware of the Chief Medical Officers' Physical Activity Guidelines.

Government is failing to act in a consistent way to ensure that the Olympics help us tackle one of our greatest health threats, sedentary lifestyles.

The committee's first accountability hearing with the Nursing and Midwifery Council took place in June last year, and in September last year for Monitor. You can read the reports on those hearings online here and here.

An outbreak of Legionnaire's disease in Scotland in which three people died has been declared over by health officials, reports the Daily Record. There were 101 confirmed and suspected cases in the outbreak in Edinburgh, which is thought to have centred on a cluster of cooling towers in the south-west of the city.

Sixty four new claims for damages have been lodged against a Yorkshire surgeon, with a further 26 set to follow, according to the Yorkshire Post. More than £1m has already been paid out by the NHS to settle 13 claims against Manjit Bhamra in connection with alleged botched operations while he worked at Rotherham general hospital. The new claims could send the final compensation bill beyond £2m.

Liz Kendall, the shadow minister for care and older people, is spearheading a campaign against government plans to close a children's heart unit, reports the Leicester Mercury. Kendall, MP for Leicester West, and colleagues outlined their concerns to health minister Simon Burns. They questioned what expert advice was available to and considered by the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, when he agreed last week that pioneering treatment for children should move from Leicester's Glenfield hospital to Birmingham, as part of an NHS reorganisation that has taken more than a decade.

The results have been promising – but the number of people involved is too small for the results to be reliable. There may be particular reasons why this handful of patients did well. And in the third year, not only the original 11 but also all the rest of the people in the study were given IVIg. That means there was no control arm to measure progress against.

I was there when the idea of the NHS Leadership Academy was conceived and I'm delighted that I'm now here to be part of its development. The NHS is operating in a world which is changing at a scale and pace never seen before. The challenges we face in delivering an NHS fit for the future will not be addressed by tweaking around the edges. We need industrial levels of transformation and innovation – and it is outstanding leadership that will deliver this change for us. It's an incredibly exciting and challenging opportunity.

• On 44% of commissioning group boards, fewer than half of members were GPs. Groups with the lowest proportion of GPs included Nottingham West, which had two GPs (20%), Bury, with three GPs (21%), and Newcastle, also with three GPs (21%).

• While women do feature on boards, they make up just 21% of board members.

The King's Fund is bringing together key policy designers and decision-makers today to discuss the implications of the care and support white paper and explore the future of social care reform.

The conference will, according to the King's Fund website, "provide an opportunity to reflect on social care reforms, respond to the proposed changes and to hear about case studies of innovation in social care across the country that suggest models of best practice".

You can follow the think tank on Twitter for updates from the event at @TheKingsFund.

Jeremy Taylor - #carewhitepaper is good document, but not much that gives sense that thinking between health & #socialcare is joined up

... the sector will have to confront a host of challenges, including a brain drain, inadequate resources and forging relationships with new partners.But the shakeup, which is a key element of the coalition's radical health reforms, is also an opportunity for healthcare professionals to tackle health inequalities by joining forces with new colleagues who already work in areas that influence people's risk of illness, such as housing and environmental services.

Making headlines elsewhere this morning, the author of a report into the best way to organise Welsh hospital services has denied his findings were "sexed up", reports the BBC. Giving evidence to assembly members, health economist Marcus Longley rejected allegations that he "colluded or connived" with civil servants.

About this article

Today in healthcare: Wednesday 18 July

This article was published on
the Guardian website
at 11.44 EDT on Wednesday 18 July 2012.
It was last modified at 00.50 EDT on Wednesday 21 May 2014.
It was first published at 03.46 EDT on Wednesday 18 July 2012.

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